Climate Emergency Declaration Petition – CORENA

CORENA collaborated with the Centre for Climate Safety and with RSTI (Research and Strategy for Transition Initiation) to develop the ‘petition + climate actions’ Climate Emergency Declaration and mobilisation petition. It can be signed at:

We incorporated optional climate action questions in the petition form so that signers can easily report on whether they do, or can, take some of the typical actions available for individuals to tackle the climate emergency themselves. This serves two purposes:

it demonstrates to government that petition signers take the climate emergency seriously enough to mobilise themselves in ways that reduce carbon emissions and that, with a bit of encouragement and education, the wider public might do the same

it gives visibility to the often-hidden climate-related actions that many people take, and will inspire others to think their own actions can make a difference if they see that ‘everyone is doing it’

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The chart below shows the percentage of signers (as of July 2016) who either already do, or say they can do, each of the eight example actions. Notes on each action are at the bottom of this page.

Declaring a climate emergency is a significant step. It will mobilise government and community resources and funds that are not normally available, but Government-level resource mobilisation is only half of the solution. The other half is what you and I do. And why wouldn’t we do everything we can when our own future is at stake?

With that thought in mind, CORENA has always focused on empowering individuals to go beyond business as usual. Our supporters are already in emergency mode, where everyone does what they can without worrying about whether or not it is their fair share. They contribute generally small amounts of money to a revolving fund that enables cash-strapped non-profit organisations to pay for solar and energy efficiency measures that they otherwise would not be able to afford to implement. Everyone benefits.

One interesting feature of the revolving fund model is that the solar and energy efficiency measures don’t cost the recipient organisations anything, and the donated money is never ‘used up’. It will continue to fund more and more projects forever. This is the sort of thing that becomes possible when we step outside business-as-usual and start looking for innovative solutions to the climate emergency. May there be many more emergency-mode innovations!